Services / Web Design & Development
Web Design & Development
Built and maintained by the same team that runs your IT.
Mako Studio — our in-house web design and development team — designs, builds, and maintains client websites. Next.js, Tailwind, Vercel, Cloudflare. AI-native where it helps, simple where it doesn't. Your MSP already knows your brand, your data, and your compliance posture — let us own the website too.
Mako Studio
Our in-house web design & development team.
Same engineers, same security posture, same accountability as the rest of Mako Logics — just focused on the website. Recent builds, client work, and stack details live on the studio site.
Context
Web Design & Development in Houston — what actually matters.
Most business websites in Houston look like they were built in 2018 and maintained in 2021. Template WordPress with plugins that haven't been updated in months, hosted on a $5-a-month shared server, with an SSL cert that auto-renews or doesn't, and an SEO posture best described as hopeful. The site works — until it doesn't — and when it doesn't, the business owner is calling the web developer, the hosting company, the domain registrar, and an SEO consultant, usually in that order, rarely getting a straight answer from any of them.
Mako Studio — our in-house web design and development team — exists because the clients we already run managed IT for kept asking us to own the website too. Same engineering bench, same security posture, same accountability. No more four-vendor finger-pointing when something breaks. We design, build, host, maintain, and measure — on modern infrastructure (Next.js 16, Tailwind v4, React 19, Vercel edge, Cloudflare) with the security stack your MSP would have insisted on anyway. The site that represents your business to customers, prospects, regulators, and AI search crawlers should be run with the same discipline as the rest of your IT environment.
We build for three audiences simultaneously: human visitors (fast load, clear navigation, accessibility, mobile-first, brand-consistent), search engines (technically clean, schema-marked, sitemap-complete, page-speed-optimized, Core Web Vitals green), and AI crawlers (structured data, clear canonical URLs, semantic HTML, and a /llms.txt manifest so ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity can cite your business accurately). That third audience didn't exist three years ago and is the fastest-growing source of inbound brand awareness. We optimize for it deliberately.
Recent builds, client work, and the technical stack details live on our studio site at makoai.studio. This pillar page is for the managed-IT buyers who want to know: if we take on your website, what are we actually signing up for? Answer below.
Who this is for
Mako Logics clients who'd rather have one team own the IT and the website than juggle an agency, a freelancer, and a hosting bill. Also a fit for Houston-metro businesses that want a modern, AI-ready site built on the same infrastructure and security posture we already run for our MSP clients.
What’s included
The full picture.
| Service | What’s included | Benefit |
|---|---|---|
| Custom Website Design & Development | Brand-led design, Next.js + Tailwind builds, accessibility, mobile-first, SEO baked in | A site that actually represents your business — not a template with your logo slapped on |
| Website Redesign & Migration | WordPress / Wix / Squarespace / HubSpot → modern stack, content migration, redirect maps | Move off a platform that's holding you back without losing search rankings or history |
| Hosting, Maintenance & Security | Vercel / Cloudflare hosting, patching, uptime monitoring, WAF, bot protection, SSL, backups | The website gets the same operational care as the rest of your IT stack |
| AI-Native Websites | Site search powered by LLMs, AI chat assistants, AI-assisted content workflows, structured data for AI Overviews | Visitors find what they need faster; your content ranks in AI-driven search |
| SEO, Analytics & Performance | Technical SEO, Core Web Vitals, Google Search Console + Analytics, JSON-LD, sitemap hygiene | Google can actually read, rank, and recommend your site |
| Integrations | HubSpot / Pipedrive CRM, contact forms to ticketing, booking / scheduling, Stripe, Shopify | The site becomes a working front door, not a brochure |
The details
What each piece actually looks like.
Custom Website Design & Development
New site, built right, on a stack that won't be obsolete in three years.
Modern, fast, secure websites built on Next.js + Tailwind + Vercel — the same stack we use for makologics.com, makoai.studio, and the Mako Logics client portfolio. Brand-led design, real content strategy, accessibility baked in, mobile-first. No page builders, no template bloat, no unmaintainable WordPress plugin stack.
Website Redesign & Migration
Get off WordPress / Wix / Squarespace without losing your SEO, content, or history.
Moving a live website is where most projects quietly fall apart. Redirects get forgotten, rankings drop, forms stop sending, and half the old content disappears. We've done this enough times to have a playbook: full content audit, redirect map, schema preservation, and a staged cutover that keeps your search traffic intact.
Website Hosting, Maintenance & Security
The website gets the same operational care as the rest of your IT.
Most small-business sites get built once and then slowly rot — plugins go unpatched, forms start failing silently, SSL certs expire, the hosting bill quietly doubles. We host on Vercel + Cloudflare, patch everything, monitor uptime and Core Web Vitals, and handle the security surface the same way we handle the rest of your stack: as if an active adversary is watching (because they are).
AI-Native Websites
Built for the era where the first visitor to your site is a language model.
Search is changing. Google's AI Overviews, ChatGPT browsing, Perplexity, and agentic buyers all read websites differently than humans do — and most sites are invisible to them. We design sites that work for both audiences: fast, accessible, semantically structured, with real JSON-LD, llms.txt, and optional on-site AI (search, chat, recommendations) that actually helps instead of making noise.
Our approach
How web design & development actually gets delivered.
- 1
Discovery + brand workshop
Every engagement starts with a discovery session: what does the business actually do, who are the real buyers, what's working on the current site, what isn't, and what are three to five concrete outcomes we should measure in 90 days. For rebuild projects, we also audit the current site's SEO, accessibility, Core Web Vitals, and security posture — and we produce a documented redirect map so search rankings survive the migration.
- 2
Design + content architecture
We design in Figma, with real content — not lorem ipsum. For content-heavy sites, we build an information architecture first (sitemap, URL structure, canonical rules, internal linking strategy) before we touch visual design. Type system, color tokens, component library, accessibility notes, and responsive behavior all documented. No 'surprises' at launch.
- 3
Build — Next.js + Tailwind + Vercel, production-grade
All builds are Next.js 16 with React 19 and Tailwind v4. Deployed on Vercel's edge with automatic HTTPS, global CDN, and preview deploys per branch. Content editable from a custom admin panel (Makopanel — the one you can see on this site) backed by Neon Postgres. Images pipeline through sharp to modern formats (WebP / AVIF). Analytics runs in-house. Forms submit via server actions. Spam defense via Cloudflare Turnstile. Email via Resend or Microsoft Graph depending on your mail stack.
- 4
SEO + AI crawlability baked in, not retrofitted
On-page: semantic HTML, descriptive meta, Open Graph and Twitter card images (dynamically generated per page), JSON-LD schema for Organization / LocalBusiness / Article / Service / FAQPage / BreadcrumbList as appropriate. Site-wide: sitemap.xml, robots.txt with explicit allow-lists for major AI crawlers (GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, Google-Extended, and 20+ others), /llms.txt and /llms-full.txt manifests that describe your business to AI systems. 301 redirect maps for migrations so backlink equity survives. Core Web Vitals monitored on live traffic — not just Lighthouse scores.
- 5
Maintenance + security — same SLAs as your managed IT
Launch is not the end. Monthly maintenance: dependency updates, security patches, uptime monitoring, backup verification, analytics review. Quarterly: SEO check, performance review, content refresh recommendations. Annual: design review, competitive analysis, roadmap. If you're a Mako managed-IT client, the website is covered under the same service-level terms as the rest of your environment.
- 6
AI-native features where they help, simple where they don't
We build AI-powered search, AI chat, AI-generated content tools, and AI-authored pages for clients where it helps real users — not because the feature tested well in a demo. Some sites need a full AI chatbot tied to the knowledge base. Others need a clean contact form and an FAQ page. We default to the simpler answer and add complexity only when it actually changes buyer behavior.
Related case study
Professional Services
Davis Investigation Services
FCRA-compliant infrastructure serving Fortune 500 and 100+ government clients.
Background check and investigative firm in Conroe, TX — built on strict FCRA, EEOC, and DOT compliance. Mako's job: keep the platform encrypted, audited, and always available.
How switching works
Four steps. No disruption.
The #1 reason businesses stay with a bad MSP is the fear of switching. Here’s how we make that fear unfounded.
01
Discovery
We learn your environment, your people, and your real pain points. No sales-team script — actual technical conversation.
02
Plan
We audit and deliver a written plan — what stays, what gets replaced, what gets hardened, what the monthly number looks like. No surprises.
03
Transition
We take over day-to-day without disrupting your work. Your current provider's runbook, your access, your vendor relationships — we document every piece before anything changes hands.
04
Running
Proactive support, 24/7 monitoring, quarterly strategy reviews. Your people call, a real person answers. Typically 2–4 weeks from signed agreement to fully operational.
Typical timeline from signed agreement to fully operational: 2–4 weeks. We document everything so if you ever leave, the next provider picks up without starting over.
FAQ
Web Design & Development — common questions.
Is this the same team as Mako Logics?
Yes. Mako Studio is our in-house web design and development team — not an outsourced agency, not a white-label arrangement. Mako Logics LLC is the legal entity; Mako Studio is the practice. The engineers who know your IT stack can be the same ones who build your website.
Where can we see your portfolio?
makoai.studio — that's our studio site. You'll see recent builds including Davis Investigation Services, Bulldog Security, Pro-Surve Technical Services, AIPromptsHive, and others. Most are also Mako Logics MSP clients.
Do we have to be an MSP client to hire Mako Studio?
No. We take web-only engagements too. That said, bundling web with managed IT gets you one invoice, one team, and better pricing — and most of our web clients end up consolidating the MSP side with us within a year anyway.
Can you work with our existing brand / designer / marketing team?
Yes. We collaborate with in-house marketing and existing brand designers regularly. You bring the brand; we bring the engineering, SEO, and ongoing operational care.
What stacks do you build on?
Default: Next.js + Tailwind + Vercel + Cloudflare. For content-heavy sites we add Payload CMS (headless, self-hosted) or WordPress if that genuinely fits. We avoid page builders (Elementor, Divi), proprietary walled gardens, and anything that creates long-term lock-in.
What doesn't Mako Studio do?
We don't do pure graphic design / brand identity work — if you need a new logo and full visual identity from scratch, we'll recommend a specialist and collaborate with them. We also don't do social-media management or paid-ads campaigns as standalone services.
Industries we do this for
Who relies on web design & development most
Want to talk through web design & development?
Real person, real conversation, no pressure.